Lao National Organic Agriculture Forum
“Organic Agriculture in Lao PDR:
Overview”
23 March 2012
Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR
Policy Context
 8th national economic development plan's goal to lift
economic status from less developed country by the
year 2020 through a strategy of sustainable
economic growth and people-centred equitable
development
 8th congress of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party
in 2006: should embark on agriculture development
which is stable, sustainable, clean, non-toxic and low
cost
Policy Context
 DOA restructured the Crop Multiplication Center
and changed its name to Clean Agriculture
Development Center (CADC) - approved by MAF
on 9 June 08
 CADC covers 4 areas, i.e. information, technical
development, inspection-certification, and food
processing and 4 agricultural systems
- safe conventional agriculture,
- good agricultural practice (GAP),
- pesticide-free agriculture and
- organic agriculture
History
 Started with NGOs who introduced the concept
“sustainable agriculture and organic farming” since
late 1990s
 Sustainable farming technologies and practices were
incorporated into various training, like NAFES, NGOs
etc.
 Thousands of farmers have been trained
 No market linkage planned, the products were sold
as conventional with only few were sold as natural
products or pesticide-free products with slight
premium prices
 mid 2000s, market linkage was introduced as
opportunities of organic agriculture as poverty
eradication became apparent
History
 2004 The collaborative project between HELVETAS
and DOA launched PROFIL
 2005 Lao organic standards was approved by MoAF
 2006 first organic certification of tea, Lao Farmer
Product
 2008 Lao Certification Body was established by
CADC, DoA
 2009 LCB started organic inspection/certification
services

Extent of production & market
 A very early development
 Largely under subsistent production => “organic by
default”
 Several wild products collected from forest or fallow
land which can be certified as organic
 Only few commercial agriculture projects in Laos
received organic certification
 Domestic organic market growing rapidly, since
started weekend market by PROFIL in December
2006
 Average sale 24.758 million kip and 2.49 tons of
vegetables and rice are sold weekly (111 organic
farmers non-certified) end of 2008
Extent of production & market
18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
Year
2008
2009
2010
2011
 2535 farmers with 9,776.63 ha (plus 16,786 ha for
wild harvest) in 2011
Extent of production & market
rice
v&F
Coffee
other
Standards and Certification
 2004, DOA and PROFIL developed organic standards,
covering organic crops production and wild harvest,
approved by the MAF Dec 05
 PROFIL assist DOA to develop a national organic seal
 DOA began developing local certification body,
Certification Body (LCB) under the CADC in 2008
 A handful of foreign organic certification bodies offer
services in Laos, all have their base in Thailand, e.g.
ACT (Thailand), BCS (Germany), ICEA (Italy) and
Bioagricert (Italy)
 LCB joined the Certification Alliance
Certification by
LCB
Foreign
joint
Training and research
 Several NGOs offers training on sustainable
agriculture, but few on organic farming (Helvetas,
Oxfam Belgium, Oxfam Australia, CIDSE, SAF)
 NGOs have their own project site, mostly working in
collaboration with national or local government
agencies
 NGO network: Sustainable Agriculture and
Environment Development Association (SAEDA)
 Currently, no education institute in Laos offering
subject or course on organic or sustainable
agriculture
 no research specifically on organic agriculture by
local researchers
Govt Policy & Programmes
 In 2006, The MIC, assisted by ITC, initiated a national
export strategy plan ==> aiming “to develop
organic agriculture ...”
 The strategy plan was approved by the Minister of
Industry and Commerce in mid 2008 and it is
expected to be approved by the cabinet in
December 2008
 DOA setting up a regulatory framework for organic
and safe food production, under term “clean
agriculture”, but no oversight of certification body
(e.g. accreditation or registration of CBs)

Participants' introduction
 Name
 Organization
 Your activities related to organic agriculture
 Comments on the presentation
 Key issues to move forward Lao organic agriculture
sector